Impact of rural soundscape on environmental restoration: An empirical study based on the Taohuayuan Scenic Area in Changde, China

Abstract

Previous studies on environmental restorative effects have mainly focused on visual landscapes, and less on the influence of soundscapes on restorative, but soundscapes play a crucial role in restorative environments, especially rural soundscapes, but there is insufficient existing theoretical evidence on the subject. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the influence of Rural Soundscape Perception on Environmental Restoration Perception, and introduces two affective variables, tourism nostalgia and place attachment, to explore the mechanism of Rural Soundscape Perception on Environmental Restoration Perception, as well as the moderating role of the number of trips is also discussed. Based on the theory of restorative environment, this study took the Taohuayuan Scenic Spot in Changde, Hunan Province, China, as the case site, and selected the rural soundscape in the area as the research object; a total of 506 valid data were collected through questionnaire surveys, and structural equation modeling was used to validate the collected data. It was found that rural soundscape perception had a significant positive effect on tourism nostalgia, place attachment, and environmental restoration perception. The results also showed that tourism nostalgia and place attachment mediated the relationship between rural soundscape perception and environmental restoration perception. Additionally, the results revealed that the number of trips did not play a moderating role in the structural relationship between rural soundscape perception and environmental restoration perception. Last, the results of the study shed light on the complex influence path of "rural soundscape perception→tourism nostalgia→place attachment→environmental restoration perception", which provides a new perspective for understanding the mechanism of the rural environment to people’s health, and also has a certain guiding significance for the landscape planning of rural tourism sites.